Keeping Rounds in the Magazine

[ryant7]

I have a cheap 30 round banana style magazine for my 10/22, it has been loaded for at least 6 years i unloaded it by hand the other day yeah there is almost no tension in it what so ever. I literally had to hit the mag to make the spring "pop" another round up i waited a bit and it reloaded fine but i have yet to shoot it so i will see how many ftf i have with the mag within the next week.

 

[Jay]

cheap 30 round banana style magazine

On the other hand.... I have seen WWII magazines from a 1911 function flawlessly after being loaded to capacity for over 60 years.

 

[Drail]

I have also heard numerous reports of 1911 magazines that were left loaded since WW1 function perfectly. This would indicate to me that these springs were very high quality spring steel with correct tempering. It also shows that properly made springs will not take a set under compression as long as it's within the design limits of the spring. Unfortunately very few manufacturers today maintain standards that high for something as simple as a mag spring.

 

[JeremySS]

Most experts agree that a quality magazine will suffer no ill effects to being stored loaded. All Experts agree that an unloaded magazine is completely worthless if you happen to need it in a hurry.

 

[ATM]

Unfortunately very few manufacturers today maintain standards that high for something as simple as a mag spring.

Then I would suggest buying only buy from those companies that do maintain these standards for something as [strike]simple[/strike] critical as a mag spring.

I wouldn't bet the function of my arms on any regimen of unloading, rotating or resting, hoping that I could prolong the failure point of a poorly designed or substandard product.

 

[Drail]

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that a mag or its spring is not a critical thing. It's just that in our current culture manufacturers design and build products to a price point and are far more concerned with volume of sales and profit than functional reliability. Even companies with names that used to generate consumer confidence and trust have for the most part had to sell out to some extant to remain competitive with all of the import junk flooding our stores. There are still a few companies out there that really do care about their products performance but as time goes on even they are being foced to cut corners on some things. Most firearms manufacturers do not make their own springs and so are forced to rely on third party vendors. This of course means that you don't really know if the springs are high quality or not until it fails.

 

[byford80]

A empty mag is a useless mag is my motto. keep them loaded you can never have enough rounds

 

[lon]

This has been my experience as well. The original ten round mags that I got with my Ruger 10/22 (I bought it used in 1988) won't feed the last round now, but I couldn't say how many rounds I ran through those two mags over the years.

Cleaning might help
clean a 10-22 magazine - Google Search

 

[100 bullets]

Fully loaded magazines will weaken if left loaded for long periods of time. If you shoot a gun every month you wont have a problem. But if you keep a magazine loaded all the time springs will weaken. I have had two do this on me. I usually keep 1 to 3 rounds out of the magazine depending on capacity. Why take a chance. Also never leave my drums loaded, unless it the wind-up kind where you don't wind until you use them.

 

[UncleMike]

No harm keeping them loaded. Common myth.

Springs wear from cycling.


ETA: Magazine spring madness: 'creep' to your 'elastic limit' to un-earth the urban legend of 'spring-set' | American Handgunner | Find Articles at BNET

Exactly!!

I have a BUNCH of early 70's production 20 rd AR mags that I fully loaded in 1975. I have been rotating the 1972 and 1974 Lake City ammo that I used to fill them back then.
So far I've fired over a dozen of them without a single failure to feed, function or fire, after being fully loaded for thirty five years.
IMO, load em up and don't sweat it!
Mike

 

[sjstill]

Fully loaded magazines will weaken if left loaded for long periods of time. If you shoot a gun every month you wont have a problem. But if you keep a magazine loaded all the time springs will weaken. I have had two do this on me. I usually keep 1 to 3 rounds out of the magazine depending on capacity. Why take a chance. Also never leave my drums loaded, unless it the wind-up kind where you don't wind until you use them.

Specifics, please.

 

[44 MAGNUM SHOOTER]

Have always kept my mags loaded and never had a problem.

 

[wwdkd]

I always keep nearly all of my magazines loaded all the time and I have never had a problem with springs weakening. The key is to get quality magazines, these would be either factory or especially Mec-gar.

 

[45Guy]

No it does not harm the mag. If that was the case there would be a awful lot of broken mags ot there.

 

[Drail]

Actually, there are an lot of broken mags out there. If you have a quality mag spring, leaving it loaded does no harm. If on the other hand you have a cheesball spring in it, it will stop feeding the last couple of rounds at some point. Ask one of the GIs who recieved the first batch of cheap low bid contract Checkmate magazines for their M9 pistol. They were told to take the spring out and "stretch" it which actually makes it fail even faster.

 

[dmorrow23]

Good to know. Recently purchased first handgun. Will start loading up. Besideds whats a gun without ammo, a hammer.

 

[brokenbutnotdead]

The wear comes from usage. Keeping them fully loaded or not has no effect....

 

[jon]

Good information! I was taught long ago to cycle mags and not keep them under full tension. I will discontinue to cycle the mags but I will keep them under capacity by 2. I like that idea. I guess this would be true regardless of mag size, 10, 14 or 30? Thanks for the info presented in a professional way.

 

[RangeJunkie]

No harm keeping them loaded. Common myth.

Springs wear from cycling.


ETA: Magazine spring madness: 'creep' to your 'elastic limit' to un-earth the urban legend of 'spring-set' | American Handgunner | Find Articles at BNET

I agree with him, but for some reason I always load one less than capacity when I know it's not gonna be shot for a while, more of a mental thing that actual reasoning I'm sure

 

[jwhite]

If your really worried.. get a snub nose revolver.. lol. no springs to worry about at all. sure shot.